Why It Sucks To Be A Mid-Level Wedding Photographer

Most photographers have been there at some point in their career – wedding photography.

Some of us move on to other things, like commercial photography. Some actually enjoy wedding photography and make a career out of it.

But too many photographers are lured into wedding photography under the illusion of quick money, only to get stuck in the evil clutches of the mid-level wedding photography market forever (or until they give up and find a real job).

Lets be honest here. Wedding photography can be fun with the right clients – but it is always a colossal amount of hard work.

And life as a mid-level wedding photographer sucks.

In this article I am going to share the wedding photography business plan that is followed by the overwhelming majority of wedding photographers on the planet – and why it is not a sustainable way to make a living.

Who Is A Mid-Level Wedding Photographer?

There are a few factors that define a mid-level wedding photographer:

1. Cost

As the label would suggest, mid-level wedding photographers charge somewhere in the middle of the wedding photography spectrum.

The total amount will vary depending on the market the photographer is working in, but I would loosely define “mid-level” as billing $2,000 to $4,000 per wedding – which in the US corresponds roughly to the national average amount couples reported spending on their wedding photographer in 2013.

2. Talent

Mid-level wedding photographers are extraordinarily talented.

They are not Uncle Bob or the Mom-With-a-Camera snapping five thousand wedding photos in program auto.

Similarly, they are not “natural light” photographers. Mid-level wedding photographers know how to light and will create stunning wedding photos for their clients in any situation.

3. Deliverables

Finally, mid-level wedding photographers have a pretty three package system that is based on the level of photography coverage a bride and groom would like.

They will also have an online gallery for their clients and offer an array of prints, photo books, canvas gallery wraps etc. Nobody ever buys albums or canvases from them since once their clients wedding photos are shared on Facebook all interest in print products is lost, but a mid-level wedding photographer will never give up trying to sell them anyway.

Mid-level wedding photographers will also make a show about not giving their clients the RAW files, but at the first hint of questioning from a bride, they will crack and give everything away for free.

Mid-Level Wedding Photography Competition

If you just read through my definition of who is a mid-level wedding photographer and you’re thinking about the wedding photography market where you live – you might be saying – OK – if I scratch a few of the budget photographers off the list, and take a couple of the luxury high end wedding photographers off the list – that leaves everyone else!

Which is exactly the point – if you are a mid-level wedding photographer, practically every other wedding photographer in your area is your direct competition.

The Mid-Level Wedding Photography Business Plan

Now that we have defined who falls into the category of a mid-level wedding photographer and who the competition is – lets take a look at a typical mid-level wedding photography business plan.

Lets say that a mid-level wedding photographer bills their clients on average a total of $1,500 for photographing their wedding day and then another $1,000 in sundry sales such as selling the RAW files and maybe a cheap photo book.

So, that is an average of $2,500 per wedding for coverage by a single photographer – the same as the US average amount spent on wedding photography in 2013. Sounds pretty good so far right?

Now, lets break that $2,500 down into an hourly wage.

Of course, the actual amount of time involved will vary for every photographer, but I think that this is an accurate representation of a typical mid-level wedding photography workflow:

That is 3.5h so far. Of course I don’t book every single wedding inquiry – my personal booking rate is about 1 in 4 once I meet with a client, so for every wedding I book, I invest about 14 hours in initial consultation time.

Lets, continue now that we have a wedding booked, there are a few more preparations we have to make adding another 6.5 hours.

Finally, on the day of the wedding, here is a detailed breakdown of a typical day of wedding photography starting at about 9:00am and ending around 12:00am the next day – or about 15 hours of straight work.

At this point, we just spend another 16 hours after the wedding proofing and finishing up the work from our day of wedding photography. The client has their proofs and its time to sell them an album, prints, canvases or some other sundry sales.

For the sake of an example, I’m going to assume that we sell them a very low cost photo album with 40 images and the RAW files, adding another 14.5 hours to our wedding photography workflow.

So if you’ve been keeping track, that is a total of around 66 hours of work to earn $2,500 – or roughly $40 per hour.

Depending on your social outlook and where you live, $40 per hour may or may not be a decent wage – but unfortunately, its only half of the story.

Where The Mid-Level Wedding Photography Business Plan Fails

If you were a salaried employee earning $40 per hour, you’d be bringing in about 80k per year. But as an independent business, just because you are billing an average of $40 per hour for a wedding doesn’t actually mean that you are earning $40 per hour.

In reality, you are only earning a fraction of that $40 per hour.

First of all, you will never book a wedding every single Saturday of the year. Plus, if you are spending somewhere around 60 hours plus, per wedding – there is no way you could keep up that pace on a weekly basis anyway.

Lets say that you book 24 weddings per year – or roughly 2 per month. For most full time wedding photographers I know, 24 weddings in a year is a pretty successful year.

That will leave you with a gross income of $60,000 from wedding photography per year.

But again, that is the gross income for your business – not your individual take-home net income.

To get your take-home net income, we have to subtract the business overhead required to run a wedding photography business.

Using the example from that article, we can expect to put aside about $1,150 per month in overhead costs, $750 per month in retirement savings and $1,200 per month for benefits (health insurance, disability insurance etc.).

So, that all ads up to $3,100 per month or $37,200 per year that it costs to operate a wedding photography business.

Leaving us with a net take-home pay of just $22,800.

If you will remember, to earn that $22,800 we had to photograph 24 weddings working an average of 66h per wedding – which leaves us with a net hourly rate of about $14 per hour for our wedding photography.

The Mid-Level Wedding Photography Bottom Line

The point that I wanted to make in this article is not that you cannot make money or a decent living as a mid-level wedding photographer.

Because you can.

If you can fine tune your workflow to be more efficient, or find ways to charge just a little more money here and there, or augment your income with lifestyle and family portraiture – you can certainly make a living as a wedding photographer.

But what I wanted to highlight is that it is an extremely tough and competitive career path to follow on a daily basis – which is why so many mid-level wedding photographers burn out after just a few years of struggling to make ends meet with their wedding photography business.

It should also be obvious that wedding photography is not the cash cow that it may seem like at first – and a bride and groom that spend an average amount on wedding photography are actually getting a pretty amazing deal.

It might be tough love, but unless your wedding photography business is generating enough income to sustain your lifestyle, there is no point being in business.

How To Make Money As A Wedding Photographer

We will look at two alternate wedding photography business plans in future articles, but for now I’d like to leave you with three keys to making money as a wedding photographer:

1. Produce amazing wedding photography.

You’re already in direct competition with almost every other wedding photographer in your town – your work better be outstanding.

2. Streamline your wedding photography workflow.

The less time you spend per wedding, the more money you make per hour and the more time you have to make more money doing something else. Do everything possible to minimize your time per wedding.

3. Charge more money.

You can charge more money by either raising your rates, or you can eliminate items that cost you time or money from your wedding packages.

Do You Have A Successful Wedding Photography Business Plan?

Let us know what you think about our wedding photography business plan.

How is my estimation of the time it takes to photograph an average wedding?

This is exactly why i only do hi end weddings with the hi end gear and hi end people. . .

Chris W. King

I hope your pictures also look ‘hi-end’.

Rightside

This is still the easiest unskilled job in the world “15 hours of straight work”. Standing around taking pictures for 15 hours doesn’t exactly qualify as a hard days work

Joshua Richardson

So you’ve done this before? If not, I’ll tell you that you are sorely mistaken in thinking it’s not a hard days work. On top of the stress involved (which I cannot express in words), you are physically exerting yourself all day. Doing squats to get at the right angle or stay out of sight. Moving your 100lbs of equipment around all day. You’d be surprised at the strength required to simply hold a 5-10lb camera up to your face for hours upon end. I hope I’ve convinced you to be a little more empathetic next time.

Chris W. King

What a pussy you are. ‘Doing squats’ rofl. Let’s go to the gym and I’ll exhaust you twice as hard within 30 min just by doing real squats.

hitched wedding films

Go mirrorless!

Throndson

Do you even realize how stressful it is to do something like this? You are not only capturing moments for the clients, but you are also doing your own advertising. So you must capture the right scene with the right lighting, settings, etc. You are constantly second guessing yourself and always looking for the right moment. Speaking of moments, if you miss just one, then it could determine if that album is a make or break. And as Josh just pointed out, it requires quite a bit of strength to carry all of your gear around for the day.

Jim Johnson

I smell a troll.

Shauna Cleaver Jackson

Definitely.

Chris W. King

Actually he is right. I’m a beginner photographer and I don’t have pro gear but I’m telling you I could get the same pictures just with good gear. I’ve proven this before. Just the switch from old crappy crop sensor camera to full frame made a huge difference. Fact is, these days all you need is gear and it will catapult you into the mid-range photography community. The only people who make it to the top notch level are skilled and talented photographers. And if you look at their work, it’s stunning!

Nexus

Unskilled! I guess that’s just the ‘internet’ talking. I was always taught that as a professional photographer I was in fact a craftsman, it’s too bad that a marketing genius of today can bullshit their way into fame & fortune!

John C

beyond the other responses, you are doing marketing, bookkeeping etc. But i guess you’d know that if you read the article.

Rob Krueger

Who do you think you are. My guess is that you haven’t spent 8-12 hours thinking about each exposure for 1100 pictures and setting up, breaking down, swapping lenses, driving to multiple locations, directing 100’s of people, no or very few breaks, and coming out with 1100 great images that tell the story of two individuals biggest day in their lives. btw if you spend 15 hours standing around taking pictures – you are doing it wrong. I will continue to love photographing weddings despite your poor outlook on the craft.

Chris W. King

rofl thinking about exposure? If you have to think about your exposures all the time you are a shitty photographer. Jason Lanier takes up to 2000 pictures and he usually edits them within a few ours and then delivers. How can he do that you ask? Because he is skilled and gets it right in camera so he doesn’t have to edit each picture individually. He is not the same whiney bitch you guys are. You are so full of yourselves. You guys think your work is so great when in fact it isn’t. You guys are what Jason calls ‘picture takers’ not real photographers. He’s a top notch photographer, check out his videos, you can learn from him.

I definitely fit into this category but want to note it is a side thing for me. 7 – 8 weddings a year is some nice side income and great way to sharpen the saw so to say. But it would be scary to need to work so much for that income and depressing when someone decided not to go with you.

Chris W. King

Because you guys are shitty photographers. Check out Jason Lanier. He can charge 5 figures for one wedding. Why? He’s good.

Morgan Glassco

And who the hell are you? The dumbass that posts on 3 year old articles acting as if they are someone.

Jeff Royer

I think the author has some good general advice.

Producing amazing wedding photography is really nothing more than a hefty amount of practice and preparation meeting with opportunity.

Streamlining workflow should be near the top of the list though. If you are not in the top 5% of wedding photographers you need to understand what your clients “perceive” as value. Some will gauge value on the shear quantity of images you supply, or lots of candid’s or whatever else. Clients that are buying photography at the mid levels (sub $3500) are not interested in your “artistic vision”, how the images are going to look in a high-end album, or the hours you’ve spent fine tuning each image. Frankly, if the composition of the image is decent, shows some emotion, is properly exposed, color balanced and straightened (most of which should be ready to go straight out of camera); they will generally be thrilled. I have seen many photographers get utterly swamped in post production, correcting sub-par technique and attempting to make a masterpiece out of each image.

And for heavens sake, please stop showing up for a wedding shoot at 9 am. Let the bridesmaids take candid’s with their cell-phones of them all getting their hair and makeup done. On that note, it is generally unnecessary to stay until midnight at the reception either. Once the party winds down it’s time to ask the B&G if they would like anything special additional, and if not, hit the road.

As for charging more money, I feel sorry for any mid-level full time wedding only photographer. The clients you are pursuing have an upper range that they will not exceed. In my opinion, at this upper range it is still not nearly enough to even be in business once you factor in all the real costs. You can make more flipping burgers, with a boatload less stress. There are two ways around this conundrum though. The first is by offering a host of other services, especially ones that are not as seasonal. The second and arguably the best if you plan to succeed at this level, is to have another full time career, or Monday through Friday job, and use wedding photography to supplement your income. Contrary to popular opinion, working another job does no preclude you from being the best photographer in your particular market, providing you are willing to put in the time and effort.

Sorry dude but you come off as a bit of a whiner IMHO. First of all the money you attribute to meeting with people is unrealistic – do you really do all your meetings in person and I really hope you are booking more than 1 in 4 people you meet with (otherwise you need to work on your people skills) ? Also if you are not capable of multi-tasking to save time (i.e. doing a sales call while waiting for photos to upload) – I am sorry for you. If you hate photography so much all you want to do is take photos of people pissing on things, maybe there is another problem with your business model and it’s a sign you are burned out. Also if it takes you 1 hour or even .5 hours to pack and unpack your gear each time, I have to say – wtf are you doing ? You should have a gear bag and be more used to dealing with your gear than that and have a place for everything. It should take you 5-10 minutes to do that. Your “sundry” time involved in your calculations is definitely padded, and you are forgetting about a big other thing. Quality of life. Be thankful you are working doing this, and not sitting at a desk slaving away all day for some corporate a hole. If you don’t love it, then maybe it’s not for you.

Chris W. King

Look at his pictures. They look like everyone’s. And the way he approaches the business aspect is another big contributor why he didn’t make it.

FJ1200

I refuse to do weddings personally. For a start, the market is pretty saturated, secondly I’m not patient with people and have a really low frustration threshold, thirdly – I’m just not very good at it, and finally have a friend who is an professional photographer and outstanding with weddings whom I pass all requests over to, and yet he’s struggling because people want pro results at amateur rates and he can’t get enough weddings to warrant doing them any more. They have “Uncle Fred who has a decent camera and can do them for us.” My boss had a mate’s mate do his wedding photos and had to get them re-shot a few weeks later – by my above-mentioned friend, at my recommendation. And they are really pleased with them.

I look at it from the point of view that it’s probably the most important day of a couple’s life – certainly the bride’s – and I want them to have good memories of it in 20 years time. So don’t get me to do them! It’s our 24th Anniversary today, and our photos still hang on the wall in pride of place. The albums will be out tonight. We still love the phortos. Our friends did the candids, and we have them in a separate album. And love them too.

Rob Krueger

Didn’t feel too good reading this, but I think that is because it is kind of true. The numbers both in time and money will vary for each photographer – like you said, but there were a lot of great points and things to think about. Thanks for the article I will share/scare my students with this so they can make an informed decision about what type of photography they would like to compete in.

Kandi Klover

Actually stunning photos can be made with natural light. Don’t be a stupid dumb fuck.

Paul

You make some very valid points in your article. There are a few things I would disagree with however. it doesn’t suck to be a wedding photographer and it is indeed hard work. Nothing worth while comes easy!

Your calculation is hilarious! Lucky you that you can put $750 a month (!) for retirement aside plus $1200 for health insurance (a month!?!) – or maybe you just need to switch your insurance lol! We are self employed as well and I got my whole family covered for half of that! To say that leaves you with $14 an hour is ridiculous and shows how bad your knowledge in book keeping is. Poor dude that you have to invest time uploading and editing photos and I’m very sorry that you even have to invest time talking to your customers! So sad! Truth is: it’s ridiculous how much wedding photographers charge! I’m not crying a tear for you. Did you write this in the hopes you will have less competition? Other people work BTW 40 hours a week and get less paid plus they can’t put that much money aside for benefits!

Chris W. King

Rofl yes. Some photographers are really good and they do a lot of work but they also charge. The better you are, the better your images, the more experience, the more you can charge. But his calculations are so hilarious, yes. I was curious to see how they break down the costs to see why they charge so much. If you can deliver fast and if you’re good you can do more weddings and get more. If you are a top notch photographer you can charge more just because of your name.

Ex wedding photographer

Weddings bring out the worst form tackiness; so many people trying to out-do each other’s tackiness. Many (and obviously not all couples) are under the impression that their theme, their day is ‘original’ and so much ‘fun’, yet it is nothing more than a race to the bottom of the tackiness heap.

It’s a competitive field so you have to ask yourself, what is your diferenciating factor – what makes you unique? Why will the high end bride choose you over the next photographer. What do you bring to the table that no one else does? These are hard questions to ask but you have to seriously consider them.

Our Advise: Pick your market that you want to target and go after it.

If it’s high end, then focus your marketing efforts to hit that 16% of the market place but be prepared to market that differentiating uniqueness.

If you are mid level or are a part time wedding photographer don’t feel bad about running with the pack- as this is a majority of the market anyway and it will be the easiest to reach on a small or limited marketing budget.

At the end of the day, couples come with different appreciation levels of photography. They also come with different budgets. The goal here should be to educate couples on the importance of good photography as much as we can, and focus your efforts on the market that works best for you, and truly come to grips with your experience level and your differentiating factor. Being a mid level wedding photographer doesn’t have to suck, it’s a matter of how you work your plan.

skysi

This is redneck photography inc LOL!

ronnnyraygun1

I do a handful a year on side of my $60k salary at a normal job. It’s extra money doing something I love. I only see it as gravy.

CHD

….which is why no one can make money as a photographer anymore.

Craig Kratovil

1 in 4 is a lousy closing rate. You need to work on your sales skills my friend.

Chris W. King

his pictures are average. I wouldn’t book him as well.

jennit

I work in photography insurance, (www.apainsuranceservices.com) and it shocks me how little photographers are paid for weddings. The gear you have to purchase, the time and effort involved, and the overhead makes this a crazy trade off. I understand it pays the bills, but wow. The featured photos in this article are so depressing!

hitched wedding films

Amen to that

nouseforaname

Well if you suck, I won’t pay, period. Top-notch people don’t have that problem. And quite frankly, you don’t need high-end gear to create pleasing wedding pictures. A wedding photographer here in my area just charges 1000 bucks and his pictures are good and he was featured in magazines. He uses a cheap ass Nikon camera with a 50mm lens that costs roughly around 300 bucks. He doesn’t have to cover expensive gear. It’s just a lame excuse to charge more. Charge what your work is worth. If you’re just as good as any other wedding photographer in your area who charges a thousand bucks, you can’t charge more until you stand out.

Chris W. King

Jason Lanier edits 2000 picuters within 4 hours and can usually deliver right away. He doesn’t have any plans on his page. He asks for budget and depending on the budget he decides what he will do. And his pictures look so great SOOC he doesn’t have to edit that much. Why? He is a skilled photographer. I can’t stress it enough, learn lighting. I’m very tempted to try wedding photography but I actually wouldn’t do anything you said. I would never give away raw files, or let them pick 10 of their fav pictures etc. I’d do it like Jason and try to get it right IN camera.The business is so bad for you guys because you are stuck. You don’t improve. You are bad at what you’re doing. Stop patting yourself on the shoulder saying you know lighting and all that stuff. The pictures you posted here in this article are all crappy compared to top notch photographers. I can’t say I’m better because I’m a beginner but I’m confident enough to say that my pictures wouldn’t look worse than yours if I had your equipment (lenses, etc.). You want to charge 10000 for a wedding? Improve your work, change your style, change your business strategies. I purposely googled for articles like that because I wanted to read from people that are stuck just to compare what they do and what professionals do who made it. I can see the clear difference not only in the image quality.

hitched wedding films

There is no such thing as professional in camera pics. Everyone you see on Jason laniers site is hugely edited! And i love his work. But your wrong if you think any photo that makes you go wow is not edited! In fact all modern photography is all editing when it was film it was different but anyone can do it now after a week on YouTube and a £500 camera.

nouseforaname

I don’t know where I said that you don’t need to edit your images. I said that Jason EDITS his images FASTER. He just runs a plugin to create that HDR look which is why he is so fast. And you’re heavily misled if you think everyone can do it after one week of watching Youtube. You can’t just magically create a stunning picture if the SOOC picture is mediocre. You can only do so much in post. I’m experienced in PS and pretty good as well ( I constantly get comments from people who don’t believe I’m a noob because of my edits)If you are just as good as those 500 dollar photographers who watched a few Youtube tutorials then you’re the problem. For Jason they’re no competition because he’s skilled and his compositions are strong. I see comments like yours everywhere on FB and when I click on the people’s profile to look at their pictures, they all SUCK. Why is it that only bad photographers complain about those 500 dollar weekend photographers stealing their clients? How come Peter Hurley, Jason Lanier, Jessica Drossin, Dani Diamond, Sean Archer, Nick Pecori etc. don’t have that problem? Why do top-notch wedding photographers still have so many clients if their clients could easily get the same picture from a 500 dollar camera weekend photographer who learned everything within a week of watching Youtube? Stop deceiving yourself and improve your photography. If you can’t look for a different profession. Not everyone has it with them to become as good as the big names in the industry.

usehisleg

Congrats on being the most annoying wedding photographer on the internets. You win!

Mrs. S Coconut

Either you are Jason, in which you are making a shitty rep for yourself here, or you want desperately to get in his pants, so maybe you should spend more time being creepy directly to him instead of being here.

hitched wedding films

Photographers have it easy in comparison to videographers!! In the UK you will struggle to get £1000 and they will spend £1500-£2000 on photos.
Editing takes 3 solid days not 1 it’s ridiculous the amount of money you get paid in the states for either photo or film is approx 3 times that if the UK. Saying that i make a living just about on weddi g videographaphy….So stop whining!! It’s better than 8-5 5 days a week with commute on top!! I know.. i did it til it nearly killed me!!

usehisleg

Plus with video, we’re lugging around 2 cameras, tripods, audio gear, lights etc from location to location. Whereas the photogs just carry their camera with the backup camera on their shoulder strap. In & outta the car in seconds.

nouseforaname

Dude after reading this whole article again I really have to say you suck big time. Look at your pictures and compare yourself to other wedding photographers. You are so mediocre you shouldn’t complain about anything else than your own skills. Improve your photography and quite frankly you don’t need expensive gear to get the pictures you posted. Sorry dude.

Hello JP Danko,
Thanks for sharing great info about the wedding photographer, I read this blog and also searching on many websites regarding this information. But your comment gives me complete details about wedding photographer. Please post more blog to other services related.
Thanks You